Nautical Charts of the UK

[dacust]

Originally Posted by ActiveCaptain

That ignores a few things...

First, chart production is also performed for national defense. Most Navy's of the world prefer to have good chart data for their ships and coastal protection. Every citizen should be paying for that.

Second, chart production is used commercially to move commerce and generate more taxes for governments. This infrastructure type of production is exactly what governments should do for their citizens and their own self interest.

There's not a lot of philosophical difference between road production and chart production. Every time you get in a car, you're not asked to cough up a few bucks. How come you have to do that in order to just view the charts of other countries?

I pretty much agree with you. I was only pointing out that it is not quite as clear cut as making us pay twice.

As for driving on the road, yes we are asked to cough up a few bucks for the distance we drive. It's the highway use taxes added to the price of your gas.

-dan

[hellosailor]

Would anyone know, not just believe but know for certain:

1- Aren't the UK Hydrographic charts Crown property, i.e. property of the monarchy? Rather than property of the Government there?

2- US government copyrights belong to "we the people" since we own the government here. I've never been able to get a solid answer on how that applies to non-citizens, though. I'm a native, I own the copyrights along with my 300 million best friends.

But as far as I can tell, that also means all the furriners and aliens out there (shhh!) DO NOT have any right to use this information. Or has someone granted them usage rights?

A funny sidebar...a couple of years ago some gummint folks (NGA) tried to claim they had the online copyrights to the online editon of Bowditch. Because their online edition had their logo on several pages, and they claimed no one else could use their logo. Gummint Intelligence. (sigh)

But back to aliens and The Crown...Anyone know either of those points, 100% totally for certain?